I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but I hate moving. With a passion. But anyways… My roommate is now moved up to Lakewood in our place. We took my truck fully loaded and a rental trailer up there on Wednesday right after I got off of work. Long long trip. About 8 hours worth. But she now has all of her stuff up there and is starting working I think today… Meanwhile I came back on Thursday just in time to go to a staff meeting at the hospital (great waste of 20 minutes BTW) and then head home. Now it’s time for me to pack. I have three more weeks working as a Tech at my hospital. It can’t end soon enough 😛I wound up talking to an area firefighter while I was up there though and got pointed in the direction of a service that just lost several EMTs and Medics. So I think I’ll email their recruiter and see what they say. The only problem is that I’m still waiting for CO state to send me my license. Seems like it’s taking forever.

After I get up there I’ll look around at schools, although the same area that this service covers and that firefighter works in apparently has one of the better AAS programs for Paramedicine, so I’m hoping that all of it works out.

All EMS medical type peoples:Up for something interesting to do?http://chroniclesofems.ning.com/profiles/blogs/stranger-cpr-referral-missionTake a look at the challenge @HappyMedic posted up for everyone. Get out there and do it. I know I will. Tomorrow after I sleep 😛 But I sure will be doing it.

Just got back from a few days in Colorado. Signed a lease on a place with my new roommate in Lakewood, just outside of Denver proper. It’ll do Lease is up at the end of July (we’re taking over the lease from soemone who’s moving to NY) so it’ll give us time to get setup and on our feet and if we decide to move we can after that or if we like it we can stay.

Still waiting on CO EMS to issue a license, but I know that can take a little while. I’m still wanting to know what license I’ll be getting. I’m applying for just random part time jobs right now until I get that. I’ve got enough saved up that if I can just cover part of my monthly expenses with a PT job, it’ll help until I can get on with one of the many ambulance companies up there. Seriously, there’s like 6 in the greater Denver Metro area.

Now it’s time to get boxes, pack, clean, and organize. All the things I hate about moving.

I’ve been a black cloud the last week. Both at my volunteer spot and the moderately sized hospital I work at. Last Saturday, wow was it only a few days ago?, I had one of the hardest calls I’ve ever had to help with. We intercept a BLS crew so that our magical ILS skills (sarcasm) can save the day. Apparently it was a charlie-foxtrot from on scene till we get to them. 6 month old baby. A little girl. Apparently her drunk parents were arguing with her in the vicinity. Words were said, ancestries questioned, tempers flared. What also flared was a .45 caliber pistol. The husband wasn’t pointing it at his wife, he said it ‘just went off’.Now, as anyone who knows anything about firearms can tell you, a loaded pistol does not just magically go off! And if it’s a 1911 like the one that discharged, there are several steps to take before it will fire. 2 separate safety systems, and in some cases three.Anyways, the stray round hit this baby that was laying in her crib. Hit her near her right scapula. I think anyways. By the time we saw her, it looked like such a large gaping hole in the baby’s shoulder that we weren’t exactly sure where the round went in.The BLS crew did what they could. Pulse? below 60 but palpable. Start compressions. Breathing? Not enough, start bagging. Wait. Do we have a bag that size? Look! Call for intercept! County EMS not available? Any volly’s that can meet us?And this my friends is where I come in. It took my ILS truck (me on an ILS graduate license and my partner who has been an ILS provider for 2 years) almost 20 minutes to intercept with the BLS rig who was running flat out to meet us. Another 35 minutes to the Lvl 1 trauma center. Hop onto their rig. SHIT! This doesn’t look good. Have my partner hop back with us. BLS truck has 3 providers? Good. One dive my truck, one drive theirs, one bag. Baby is a pasty color, blood is all over their stretcher. The wound has been dressed as well as can be, but it’s starting to bleed through. Another trauma dressing is slapped on and taped in place. Lung sounds? With my adult steth, hard to hear. Sounds like air is moving in both sides. Lines? None of course. Look for a vein. Nothing happening. Where’s the Jem-shidi? There it is. First time I’ve done one of these. There’s the pop. Aspirate! Some marrow return. Good. Secure it. Lets see…. Braslow tape out. Got a weight. Quick figuring. First bolus is running. We’re too far out. Call dispatch. Is there a flight team available? None? Ok then we run code into city to the Only Trauma Center in the State, luckily only 30 more minutes away. Put the kid on a 4 lead. Sinus. Brady. Very Brady for a kid this age. Still doing compressions? Ok keep em up. Oh hey I should spell you for a bit. Keep it up. Another bolus going in. Good. Let’s give OTCITS as much notice as possible. Let em know we’re coming and what we got. Report given. Reassess what we got. Good brachial pulses, but still too low. Airway is open and we’re bagging. OPA in place. We have an IO in place and running a bolus. No way of telling BP, out smallest cuff is too big for her. Can we secure the airway better? Nope, nothing that small except ETT, and we can’t use em. Any spontaneous breathing? None?! Well keep bagging. Monitor. Still Sinus Brady. Call for orders for a third bolus and permission to start 2nd IO. Third bolus yes. Second IO, no. Hey, there’s the city limits. OTCITS should be coming up soon. Pulses? None?! Great. Monitor? Asystolic… Not good. Full on coding the kiddo now. Have I mentioned I hate Peds yet? Well I do.Hey we’re pulling in. Trauma team waiting for us. They haul ass iwth our gurney to the trauma bay. Tell em what we got.“6 month old, single GSW right shoulder area. Single exit wound. Went pulseless and apneic on us right before we pulled in. Single IO established. Epi given per protocol once asystolic. 3 boluses in. OPA in place.”They work the little girl, the one who could have had a long and productive life ahead of her. The one who should never have found herself in this position. The one who’s parents are going to have to live with this for the rest of their lives. After 20 minutes they call her. I feel my shoulders slump as I walk out. Gotta get our truck cleaned… Or in this case help Tiny Town BLS get theirs cleaned up. Time to go. Back to quarters. For more of this. Great. I hate ped calls.

That was my weekend shift. Last night at work was fun too. Sitting with two patients because they were both in for SI. So someone had to watch them. One was very aged and not doing well. He coded about midnight. So while I was busy starting to call the code and doing compressions, his roommate decided that it woudl be a good thing to pull out his IV. And his Foley… Balloon inflated still. Talk about bloody. I’ve seen less blood from a GSW. So it was not a good night. My first patient last night wound up being called about 30 minutes from when he coded. He did too much damage to his body over teh years with all kinds of drugs. Funny thing though. I don’t feel nearly as bad, if really at all, over this one as I did the kid. Two lives gone, but one seems to hit me worse than the other. I guess that’s life.

I’ve just had a bad week and needed to vent a little. The ped call still has me a little worked up over it. That was not a pleasant scene… But then again I know it was probably harder for the BLS crew that worked it first. Lord knows what I would have done to those ‘parents’ had I been in the room with them.

Southwest Medevac lost a helicopter while supporting training exercises near Ft. Bliss last night. 3 crew members are reported as casualties. The rotor was from the Las Cruces base. Prayers go out to the families and friends of all affected by this loss.